This production should have been better than it was, mainly because too many of the actors did not make allowances for the difficult acoustic of the venue and so were occasionally unintelligible. This, I'm afraid, loses the piece its four star rating.
Badham has taken Aeschylus' Persae and applied it to Iraq, switching the focus from the Persians (and, in particular, Atossa, the mother of King Xerxes) to the Americans and giving parts of the Chorus' speeches to three officials and Atossa's words to Barbara Bush. Where Atossa dreams of and worries about Xerxes who is fighting the Greeks in the land of Hellas, Mrs Bush worries for her son George W who is visiting the troops in the Gulf. Like Atossa, she too has worrying dreams about his fate.
The chorus of officials, unlike their Aeschylean counterparts, are not there to offer support but to make sure she says the right thing in front of the media. Where Aeschylus has a messenger recounting the defeat at Salamis, Badham has a crippled soldier, who is to receive a Purple Heart from Mrs Bush, telling of his experiences.
There's a nice irony in the way Badham uses the Aeschylus play and the piece is cleverly constructed but there is no real feeling of involvement, of emotional depth, until the end.
(Originally awarded 3½ stars.)